Commitments Tracker
What the African Union and CARICOM promised each other — and what has been delivered. Last updated 8 September 2026.
The difficulty is not principally that this partnership misses its deadlines. It is that it rarely sets any. Ten of the fourteen undertakings made in September 2021 were adopted with no date, no owner and no review point. Every commitment that did carry a date has been missed, and the largest single failure is the summit schedule itself.
Commitments of the 2021 summit communiqué
Every undertaking in the founding document, with its paragraph reference and whatever deadline it carried.
| Commitment | Operative wording | Deadline | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU–CARICOM Memorandum of UnderstandingPara 20 | MOU conclusion targeted for the October 2021 UNCTAD meeting in Barbados. Signed in the margins of the 79th UN General Assembly by CARICOM Secretary-General Dr Carla Barnett and AU Deputy Chairperson Dr Monique Nsanzabaganwa. | 2021-10 | Source ↗ | Delivered |
| Institutionalize the partnershipPara 20 | "…commence the process of institutionalizing the partnership within six months." | 2022-03 | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| 2nd Africa-CARICOM SummitPara 19–20 | "…holding annual Africa-CARICOM Summits on September 7th." The communiqué set the 2nd Summit for 2022. It was convened in Addis Ababa on 7 September 2025. | 2022-09 | Source ↗ | Delivered |
| Governance constitutive statutesPara 20 | "…facilitate adoption of the governance constitutive statutes at the 2nd Summit in 2022." Whether they were adopted at the 2025 summit has not been established. Both secretariats have been asked in writing; neither has replied. | 2022-09 | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| Africa-CARICOM DayPara 19 | "…designating September 7th of every year as Africa-CARICOM Day." | None stated | Source ↗ | Delivered |
| Regular weekly direct flightsPara 15b | "…establish regular weekly direct flights between African and Caribbean regions." | None stated | Source ↗ | Not delivered |
| Multilateral Air Services AgreementPara 15a | "…establish a Multilateral Air Services Agreement." | None stated | Source ↗ | Not delivered |
| Double taxation agreementPara 15a | "…conclude an agreement to abolish double taxation." | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| Visa requirement reviewPara 15a | Commitment to review visa requirements between the regions. | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| Joint electronic mass media platformPara 14a | "…establish a joint AU/CARICOM electronic mass media platform to facilitate flow of information." | None stated | Source ↗ | Not delivered |
| Food security & blue economy cooperationPara 14a | "…collectively endeavour to enhance food security, exploit the blue economy and technology." | None stated | Source ↗ | In progress |
| Africa-CARICOM Public-Private PartnershipPara 16 | "…establishment of an African-CARICOM Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) dedicated to mobilizing resources." | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| Forum of African and Caribbean Territories and States (FACTS)Para 18 | "…establishment of a Forum of African and Caribbean Territories and States." | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| Africa-CARICOM CommissionPara 18 | "…establishment of an Africa-CARICOM Commission." | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
Later commitments and announcements
Made after the founding communiqué, chiefly at the 2025 summit and through Afreximbank.
| Commitment | What was announced | Deadline | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HeDPAC2nd Summit, 2025 | Health Development Partnership for Africa and the Caribbean launched. | None stated | Source ↗ | Delivered |
| "Bridges of Unity" initiative2nd Summit, 2025 | Linkages across agriculture, digital innovation, culture, leadership, knowledge and health. | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| Joint reparations mechanism2nd Summit, 2025 | AU and CARICOM reparations bodies to operationalize a joint mechanism. First joint meeting held June 2026. | None stated | Source ↗ | Delivered |
| 3rd Africa-CARICOM SummitAssembly/AU/Dec.942(XXXIX), Feb 2026 | Heads of State and Government called for the third Africa-CARICOM Summit to be held on 7 September 2028 in a CARICOM Member State, with hosting alternating between the regions. Endorsed by the AU Assembly in February 2026. Paragraph 19 of the 2021 communiqué commits the parties to annual summits and has not been amended. | 2028-09 | Source ↗ | In progress |
| Afreximbank financing ceiling50th CARICOM HoG, Feb 2026 | Caribbean financing cap raised from US$3bn to US$5bn under the Global Africa Initiative. | None stated | Source ↗ | In progress |
| Caribbean Trade Centre, BridgetownAfreximbank / CPSO | Regional headquarters with conference facilities. Construction expected to begin 2026. | 2026-12 | Source ↗ | In progress |
| Caribbean Export-Import BankAfreximbank / CPSO | A Caribbean counterpart institution for trade and investment financing. | None stated | Source ↗ | Unclear |
| CARICOM Payment and Settlement SystemAfreximbank / CPSO | Cross-border settlement infrastructure to reduce hard-currency dependence. | None stated | Source ↗ | In progress |
| ACTIF2026Afreximbank / St Kitts and Nevis | Hosting agreement signed for the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum. Forum date not yet confirmed here. | None stated | Source ↗ | In progress |
The implementation gap
Only the four commitments that carried a date can be measured. That is the point of the chart as much as its content.
Institutionalizing the partnership was due March 2022 and remains open after 54 months. The governance constitutive statutes were due at the 2nd Summit in 2022 and remain unestablished after 48 months. The 2nd Summit was due September 2022 and was held 36 months late. The Memorandum of Understanding was due October 2021 and was signed 35 months late.
Milestones
Dated events only. Undated commitments are in the tables above.
September 2021, first summit. September 2024, MOU signed. September 2025, second summit, Addis Ababa. February 2026, Afreximbank raises the Caribbean ceiling to US$5bn. June 2026, ACTIF2026 hosting agreed and the joint reparations mechanism meets. September 2026, the sixth summit falls due and is not convened. September 2028, the third summit is scheduled.
Continental context
Two African Union frameworks that sit outside the CARICOM communiqué but shape what this partnership can eventually carry. Included because they are relevant, and sourced to the same standard as everything above.
African Continental Free Trade Area
AfCFTA is Africa's internal single market, not a CARICOM commitment — but it is the trading infrastructure any AU-CARICOM trade pillar would eventually plug into. It entered into force in 2019, covering 55 nations with a combined GDP of roughly $3.4 trillion. As of 4 September 2026, 50 of the African Union's 55 member states had deposited instruments of ratification, but only 25 had gazetted operational tariff schedules as of a December 2025 update from the U.S. International Trade Administration. Intra-African trade rose 5.5% to $213.8bn in 2025, per Afreximbank's African Trade Report 2026. The gap between legal ratification (50) and operational readiness (25) is the same pattern tracked elsewhere on this page: an instrument can be in force continent-wide and still not be usable for a given shipment. A widely circulated figure of roughly 8,400 certificates of origin issued under the preferential regime could not be traced to a primary AfCFTA or Afreximbank source and is omitted here pending better sourcing.
Ratification status, tralac ↗ · Tariff schedule status, U.S. ITA ↗ · Afreximbank African Trade Report 2026, via allAfrica ↗
AU Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons — signed, not ratified
Adopted by the AU Assembly in January 2018, the protocol would allow visa-free movement, residence and eventual establishment rights across the African Union — the free-movement counterpart to AfCFTA's free trade. Thirty-two of the AU's 55 member states have signed it. Only four have ratified: Mali, Niger, Rwanda, and São Tomé and Príncipe, with Niger's July 2019 ratification the most recent. Entry into force requires fifteen ratifications. The protocol has been stalled at four for more than six years, with no public deadline or review mechanism forcing it back onto the agenda — arguably the clearest example on the continent of the pattern this site exists to track: a commitment with real political backing and a specific numeric threshold for success that has simply stopped moving. Some material circulated around CARICOM-Africa Day 2026 has described this protocol as "signed and ratified." It is signed. It is not ratified, and it is not in force.
Correction, 7 September 2026. The undertaking to hold the 2nd Summit and the undertaking to adopt governance constitutive statutes at it were previously recorded as one entry, marked delivered. They are separate commitments and are now tracked separately: the summit was held, 36 months late; the statutes remain unestablished. The count of 2021 commitments therefore moves from thirteen to fourteen, and the number carrying a deadline from three to four.
How entries are selected and judged is set out in the methodology. Corrections are welcome and are recorded rather than made silently.